Sanctioning and trustworthiness across ethnic groups: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan
中文摘要
由于人们对被视为属于其他群体的个体所持有的社会偏好通常较弱,在族群多元的环境中开展合作更为困难。我们利用在阿富汗开展的经济实验,展示了施加经济处罚的能力如何有助于克服这一难题。我们采用一种具有两个特殊设定的信任博弈:投资人会传达其期望的回转金额,并且在部分处理组中,可以选择是否对不遵从该请求的受托人有条件地施加小额罚款。我们将实验对象随机与同族群成员或其他族群成员配对。我们发现,当投资人不具备施加罚款的能力时,实验对象对同族群成员表现出更高的可信度。当罚款由同族群成员施加时,其作用甚微。然而,在跨族群互动中,罚款提高了可信度,几乎消除了内群体偏袒。有趣的是,当罚款对投资人可用但并未使用时,这一结果在性质上依然相似。这些结果表明,由于个体对货币制裁的行为反应存在差异,促进合作执行的制度在族群之间应用时比在族群内部应用更为有效。
Abstract
Since social preferences towards individuals perceived as belonging to a different group are typically weaker, cooperation is more difficult in ethnically diverse settings. Using an economic experiment in Afghanistan, we show how the ability to impose financial penalties can help to overcome this. We use a trust game with two special features: investors communicate a desired back-transfer and, in some treatments, can choose whether to conditionally impose a small fine on trustees who do not comply with this request. We randomly paired subjects with either a co-ethnic or someone from a different ethnic group. We find that when investors do not have the ability to impose a fine, subjects are more trustworthy towards co-ethnics. When the fine is imposed by a co-ethnic, it has little effect. However, in cross-ethnic interactions, the fine increases trustworthiness, virtually eliminating in-group bias. Interestingly, this result is qualitatively similar when the fine is available to the investor but not used. These results suggest that institutions for enforcing cooperation are more effective when applied between, rather than within, ethnic groups, due to behavioral differences in how individuals respond to pecuniary sanctions.